


home, where I wanted to go (translation)

by queenofspades (enlightenight)



Series: Road to happiness is paved with sadness [Community] [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Subway buys Greendale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 01:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10232588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enlightenight/pseuds/queenofspades
Summary: "Where would you wanna go?""Home, I would want to go home."Or, in a timeline where Greendale isn't saved, Jeff and Britta talk.Originally written for Keyword Challenge with the keyword "home". Translated to English fromthis.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Read with [rainymood](http://www.rainymood.com), s'il vous plait.  
> Post 5x12. Slash with no smut. 
> 
> Well, if you ask me, Jeff Winger is 190% bisexual, so here's my fix-it fic for that. YOU'RE WELCOME, DAN HARMON.

[Clocks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d020hcWA_Wg) \- Coldplay

In front of the library that hosted the infamous Study Group F — which was already renamed by Subway — two Greendale students took a deep breath as they threw glances at each other.

“End of an era,” muttered Jeff, wasn’t even aware that he was scowling. He didn’t carry the distant expression, or worse — ready to mock everyone smile on his face. Britta, being well aware he was in mourning, was merciful enough not to nag him on this, nodded. “Yes,” she said, with a sigh.

Neither of them mentioned the marriage proposal Jeff made.

“What’s next for you?”

Britta answered this by shrugging. “I don’t know,” she said, coming back a few steps to avoid the rain drops. She probably thought she owed more than a simple shrug as an apology, Jeff knew he would _never_ know what she was thinking. “I was serious about enrolling into City College. Maybe I can be more successful if there are less people around me, shouting at me about how awful I am.” She saw Jeff opening his mouth, and raised her hand. “No need to apologise, Winger. I know you well enough not to take you seriously.”

Jeff, in between of being offended and happy, combed his hair with his fingers.

“I never thought it’d end like this.”

“Maybe it didn’t for you. What about Subway’s offer?”

“I rejected.” This was something he should’ve done _the moment_ they offered. Being a community college teacher was bad enough, it was a mistake that he spent _minutes_ considering being a _sandwich company college teacher._ “I think I have a shot at getting back to my old life this time.”

“I never understood why you didn’t in the first place,” she laughed, bitterly. “We both know you’re not _that_ good of a person.”

“I didn’t want to admit it,” he laughed as well, even this laughter was accompanied by his trademarked eye rolling. It was easy with laughing at stuff with Britta next to him — maybe they could’ve made it work if they actually got married.

Obviously, Britta didn’t want to end the conversation. “What if you had a chance to pick?” Her eyes were on him, searching for the answer on the surface. “If you had every chance, where would you want to go?”

The blue eyes with flickering green lights in them closed for a short while, and as Jeff Winger gave himself a few seconds to gather his thoughts, he knew Britta was watching him like a lioness watched a prey. “Home,” he said, opening his eyes. “I would want to go home.”

“Home,” Britta repeated, eyebrows raised. The curiosity in her voice wasn’t judging. “Are you talking about the one with lousy security?”

Former lawyer laughed. “Do you want me to tell?”

“Of course! I’m a psych major, I was — maybe I can get a master’s. Whatever. Listening is my _job,_ Jeff. I mean, it will be.”

As there were few lightnings lightening up the horizon, Jeff shook his head. “We should go somewhere. Preferably a place we can get drunk, and not as loud as L Street.”

“The Red Door is not a place like that, are we gonna have this conversation again? But still, I nominate my apartment, because it’s the closest place. You can save on gas.”

*

[Coming Back](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_pZqcxnyiQ) - Gotye

Oddly enough, he still remembered everything vividly — even though it had been twenty years. People would generally remember the life changing moments-slash-people, but Jeff’s memory which held a MSc or a PhD in not remembering stuff he didn’t like, continued betraying him _in this_ particular memory.

Smell of coffee. Smell of tobacco, when it was lit up. Warmth.

These three things changed Jeff Winger’s life almost entirely.

Britta continued staring at him expectantly, as Jeff finished the vodka in his glass. He needed some anaesthetics to tell something he usually fought himself on _not to remember_ after long, lonely, and sad nights.

She lit up a cigarette, almost apologetic in doing so. As the tickling smell of newly burnt tobacco covered the entire house, Jeff clenched his jaw and leaned even more on his chair. Staring at the ceiling, with eyes that did not see them, he started.

“I was eighteen,” he murmured. “It was the worst summer holiday of my life, everything was awful. We were having constant fights with my mom and I was looking for an opportunity to move away, I hated life, and as I was trying to convince myself that maybe I should enjoy the ride downwards, _he came._ And…” He sighed. “I think there’s no less cliched version of saying this. He changed my life.”

Britta was silent, listening to him speaking as if he was confessing the worst sins he committed, and as she took another breath from her cigarette, she wished for this story not to end in a bigger trauma. “It’s not a bad thing,” Jeff quickly said — as if he heard what she was thinking. “The ending is not happy, if you ask eighteen year old me, it was the end of the world. But now come to think of it… I think it was good.”

They stayed silent for a while. Britta’s expectancies grew as he didn’t care about any of it. He took his time with the vodka bottle to fill up his glass, and turned the glass for a few times before taking a sip from it. “Daniel Atkins,” he murmured. “Danny.”

*

When Daniel _‘Danny’_ Atkins set foot on Denver to visit his father, whom he hadn’t seen for more than ten years — and of course, giving up on that dream shortly after and deciding to spend all the money he got from his mother in bars, Jeffrey _‘Jeff’_ Winger was just eighteen, with zero ideas about what to do with his life.

“To be fair,” he corrected himself. “We were both young.”

And they had met at a bar.

When they both understood that the night was gonna end in a dirty hotel bed, they had their sixth drinks. If you had asked Jeff before that night, he’d find it impossible to like a guy — not that he had actually liked a girl until that day. His days were filled with meaningless flirtations and self-pity, there was no room for romance. But with Danny… It was so natural that he didn’t even question.

“And,” he sighed, sounding more fragile than Britta could ever imagine he was capable of. “I don’t know about him, but I was in love, I know that.”

In the three months they spent together, every place they were together was home for Jeff. It was as if they lived an abridged life, lives of people who were together for years. They had routines, even: Danny waking up at nine, lighting up a cigarette; Jeff waking up to the smell of it, their breakfast of an amazing coffee and awful donuts, and the nights they spent together. _Warmth._

The feeling of _not being alone_ was addictive, so addictive that Jeff was having constant nightmares about the day Danny was going to leave. It was close, they both knew it, after all, Danny never promised to stay together. They were going to be kicked out of the room they were staying eventually, there was a limit to Mr. Atkins’ hospitality.

“What was he like?” Britta asked, as she made her way to the cupboards to get the second bottle. Getting Jeff to talk this much costed her a bottle of Stochlinaya, the remaining half bottle was Britta’s, of course, as the listener’s share. “What did he look like?”

Jeff scowled as he tried to remember, but he had a sweet, drunk smile on his face. “I can’t describe even if I want to,” he said. “There was no special feature he had, he had tattoos, and he had a lot of them — but the thing I remember the most is that his eyes. Sweetest brown I’ve ever seen. Weird I still remember that.”

Britta accidentally slammed the bottle on the table, hard, and rolled her eyes a bit impatiently. “Because he affected you,” she said, more compassionate than her expression would led Jeff to believe. “What about the day he left?”

Jeff put his glass on the table, and as she filled it up, “He waited for me to wake up,” he said. “It was way past nine, and he lit up the first cigarette of the day then.”

*

He was laying next to Jeff. His ruffled, blonde hair — lighter than Jeff’s — was almost covering those sweet brown eyes.

“Good morning,” murmured Jeff, his eyes catching Danny’s. He frowned when he noticed the minute hand was way ahead of twelve. “Did something happen? _Are you leaving?”_

He was always gonna be embarrassed when he remembered the fear in his voice then.

Still, the last thing he felt with Danny was embarrassment.

“Unfortunately,” Danny sighed, even though his tone was that usual, sarcastic tone, it was clear he didn’t like it either. Or that was what Jeff imagined, hoping he loved him back. Pathetic, yes, but that was the truth.

And Jeff learnt in the hard way that there was no escape from the truth.

“I won’t ever see you again, right?” He sounded as sharp as broken glass. “Today’s our last day?”

Instead of answering this, Danny leaned forward; and as they kissed, Jeff reminded himself that there was no future of this. He had found everything he needed, _everything;_ and nothing mattered, not even the future, they could’ve taken care of it, like they did in the last three months.

Or, they hadn’t taken care of anything, and ignored everything.

Would it matter?

“Oh come on, don’t frown,” a laughter that didn’t reach those brown eyes echoed in the room. “I don’t want to remember you like this, Jeffrey.”

There was rain outside, the thunderclaps were shaking the windows, and people were running in the streets probably — people with a lot of things to lose, afraid of getting wet.

Jeff Winger was eighteen, and he had nothing in life to lose, except for that life itself.

“Let’s walk,” he said, raising on his elbows in the bed. “Now. While it’s raining. To the train station.”

Maybe because he really loved him back, maybe because he wanted this as well, maybe because he didn’t have any money to pay for the taxi — or maybe because of all three, Danny accepted this.

When they reached to the entrance of the train station, soaking wet, Jeff was the one who kissed Danny. Last time.

*

 [Chicago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-cUdmdWgU) - Sufjan Stevens

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” Britta was sleepy, she had been sleeping for a while now. Jeff didn’t want to wake her up — especially after carrying her to her bed without waking her up.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Far away, to New York maybe, you lived there—“

“Jeff, you’re drunk,” she slurred. “Come to bed, and sleep. It’s warm here.”

No, he was fully awake. Everything was crystal clear in front of him: They could’ve gone there to never come back, money wasn’t a problem — okay, studying for the New York Bar Exam was something that required him to _actually_ study, but it was worth it. They could’ve started a new life in an entirely different place, escaping all the darkness and sadness surrounding Greendale. _How could Britta not see this?_

The former anarchist took a small breath as she turned to her other side in her sleep, as Jeff was sitting at the end of the bed. He looked at the cigarette box on the ground, trying to think it through. He chose to ignore that part, and as he found a lighter as well, he took one cigarette from the box, and lit it up.

Moving too carefully not to wake Britta up, he went to the adjacent living room; and walked to the cracked open window. The coughing fit wasn’t hard to suppress as he breathed the smoke out of the window — and when the wind brought raindrops through the small opening, he realised the reason why he had reached to this enlightenment. He was gonna tell that to Britta and convince her, for certain, because they didn’t need to stay here, this place was _never_ home to them, this city, this school…

It was the reason they looked for unnecessary adventures, the reason the group sticked together, and it was the only, sole reason of everything he did to this day. It was so simple, and so clear, Jeff cursed his own stupidity. He was no different than that naive eighteen year old boy he once was, even at his thirty something.

Both him and Britta were looking for a home, and he was sure he had _found_ his.

The city, the school, the study room — none of them mattered. As long as she was with him, he had was home.


End file.
